My Eagles are on a high but Emerick is entitled to feel hard done by

It looks like being a busy World Cup for the lawyers. As chief executive of Rugby USA, I was there when we opened the disciplinary panel hearings in Paris yesterday after Paul Emerick, arguably our best player, was cited for his tackle on Olly Barkley. His five-week ban would put him out of the tournament altogether but we have 48 hours to consider an appeal - and I can tell you now that that's what we intend to do.

As we were leaving, the England captain, Phil Vickery, and his lawyer, Richard Smith, were just arriving to appear before Professor Lorne Crerar, after also being cited following the Lens match by the commissioner, Steven Hines. Whatever Mr Hines found on the video certainly seemed in conflict with my impressions at the time. The referee Jonathan Kaplan missed Vickery's trip-cum-kick during the match and said Emerick's offence was worth a yellow card, something he stuck by yesterday. In the Premiership, the Heineken Cup and most Test matches the same would probably be true and that would have gone for Vickery's lunge which seemed more the product of a big man in a hurry wrong-footed by Emerick's sidestep.

From my time coaching Vickery at Kingsholm I know enough about the Raging Bull to know that an intentional trip would be as foreign to him as it would be to 99.9% of rugby players.

After the match, Barkley argued the same lack of intent by Emerick, saying there was no suggestion that he was driven into the ground: quite the opposite, in fact, and he said the tackle probably looked worse than it was and that he was, in part, to blame.

The professor saw it otherwise He said there was a deliberate tipping motion in the tackle and downward force and that only Emerick's previous good record and remorse saved him from the 10-week sentence that spear-tackling can attract. I know all about spear tackles, from personal experience, and this definitely wasn't one of them. As I say, we will appeal, but tonight in Montpellier against Tonga we will be without a centre who not only has the experience of 26 caps but is one of only a handful of seasoned professionals in the Eagles squad. Coming on top of other issues, it's hard to take.

Just four days after holding the world champions to 28-10 we play a side we think we can beat in Tonga, but one still fresh as a daisy and ready for their first outing. In other parts of the forest the scheduling has caused issues and I believe Japan and Argentina have questioned the regularity with which they get little rest in the opening rounds. In fact John Kirwan, the Japan coach, said he put out an understrength side against Australia on Saturday to hold something back for his big game - against Fiji in Toulouse today.

It's a route we chose not to go down. As Peter Thorburn, coach of the USA Eagles and a New Zealander like Kirwan, said when he announced our team to play England, that we felt an obligation to the tournament. Mind you, I think the tournament also has an obligation to all the teams in the competition and not just the big boys, who seem guaranteed the best part of a week's rest time between their games.

That said, we are still very happy to be here, as anyone who has come into contact with the Eagles will confirm. Lille in the build-up to Lens was great, meeting up with scores of friends and former colleagues from England, and feeling real warmth from a region not known for loving rugby. Lens, not France's most picturesque town and a football stronghold, was even better.

The guys were really up for the game, as England found out, although I have to question the way they went about the tactical task of beating us. That high lasted through the game - which ended with English fans cheering for the Eagles - and the curtailed post-match celebrations, the press conferences and the television interviews, and was still obvious as we pulled into Lyon at midnight.

Since then Lyon has treated us like royalty, as well as the Argentinians who are also in town. The facilities are top-class and thanks to the TGV we seem to manage all the travel without being too tired. It is just unfortunate Emerick had to make yesterday's extra excursion to Paris and the disciplinary hearing.